The moment of finding a fellow-creature is often as full of mingled doubt and exultation, as the moment of finding an idea.

... one's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then.

Things are achieved when they are well begun.

Mankind is not disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of great victors when their victory is on the right side.

It is painful to be told that anything is very fine and not be able to feel that it is fine--something like being blind, while people talk of the sky.

When one wanted one's interests looking after whatever the cost, it was not so well for a lawyer to be over honest, else he might not be up to other people's tricks.

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.